Everything You Know I Haven't Got
by Morgan Stuart
Summary: When the media declares open season on Greg Lestrade, the hunt begins.
1. Chapter 1

Historian's Note: This takes place after Sherlock's fall, during the Great Hiatus.

* * *

Everything You Know I Haven't Got

* * *

Chapter 1

* * *

Despite the barrier of furniture between them, Mycroft Holmes could see the man clearly in his mind's eye, forearms braced against the polished table, hands curled around his glass, head bowed.

Not exactly in the spirit of the venue, to be fair. This wasn't some dank, dark pub, but rather an upscale bar newly renovated in an attempt to bring a bewildering clash of colours and styles together into a cheerful chorus of "fusion."

Then again, the painfully overwrought brightness of the setting meant it was an unlikely place for this man to be, and that in itself made it a shrewd choice of destination.

The aging bartender exuded a quiet competence at odds with the self-conscious trendiness of his surroundings. Mycroft could tell he was the sort who was equally adept at offering a sympathetic ear or minding his own business, depending on the mood of the customer. He proved doubly amenable once he discovered that Mycroft was a man of especially refined (that is, expensive) taste.

Mycroft read the bartender's life story and personal character in the cut of his shirt, the faded scar above his left eyebrow, the brush of his blunt fingertips against the aged bottle. The elder Holmes adjusted his approach accordingly.

"Haven't seen you round here before, mate," the bartender offered noncommittally as he poured Mycroft's brandy.

"No." Mycroft held the man's gaze and nodded in the direction of the booth in the back. "And you haven't seen him at all."

Mycroft maintained a smile – somewhat more pleasant than daunting, he knew the shades of meaning well – as he watched for understanding and then agreement to dawn in the bartender's expression.

"Right you are, sir," the bartender said after a beat. He accepted the offered cash without glancing at the bill's denomination and then turned away without another word.

Satisfied, Mycroft nodded, took up the snifter, and made his way to the lone figure in the corner.

For a moment Mycroft stood beside the booth.

The man didn't respond.

Then his hands released his glass and clenched to fists on the tabletop, and he straightened as if readying to push himself to his feet, to fight or flee as needed. At last he turned his head, and his eyes grew wide, and his breath left him in a great huff.

"Bloody hell."

"Good evening to you, too" – Mycroft caught himself before he could say "Detective Inspector."

"Bloody hell," Lestrade repeated, sagging back, deflating. "Mycroft."

"May I?"

"Yeah." Relief was written in every line of his body, but the way Lestrade sighed the word made it sound like defeat. He waved Mycroft to the opposite seat. "Go on, then."

As Mycroft settled himself, his brandy, and his omnipresent umbrella, Lestrade added, "Not the wisest thing, though, being seen with me. You should realise that."

Mycroft brushed imaginary lint from his sleeve. "If all goes well, neither of us will be noticed." He observed Lestrade from the corner of his eye. "I've followed the reports in the press. They've been…"

"Brutal? Yeah." Lestrade shook with mirthless laughter as he revolved his glass in a series of ninety-degree turns between his fingers. "On the bright side, at least the bastards aren't dogging John Watson's every step these days."

"I expect the attention explains your new 'look.'"

Lestrade smoothed a hand over the silver-streaked hair along his jaw and gave a diffident shrug. "If it puts even one journalist or photographer off my trail, I reckon it's worth it."

The beard suited him, but Mycroft didn't say so.

"About the suspension, the hearing" – this was harder than Mycroft expected, as he had little practice with such an admission – "there was nothing I could do."

Lestrade glanced up at that, and genuine surprise creased his brow. "Never asked you, did I?"

"You did not," Mycroft confirmed.

"We both know if the inquiry's legit, they'll find in my favour. Sherlock was the real thing, and every deduction he made was backed up with old-fashioned police work by me and my team. I did my due diligence. Couldn't have secured convictions otherwise. Any honest investigation will confirm it."

The words came in a rush. Rehearsed. Repeated, obviously, if only to himself.

For several heartbeats, blue eyes held brown. "And you think it will be an honest investigation," Mycroft said.

Lestrade looked away first. Very deliberately, he raised his pint and took several long swallows. Once he'd replaced the glass on its coaster, he murmured, "'Course not."

Mycroft nodded and readied the mental script he'd prepared.

But Lestrade surprised him.

"How are you, Mycroft? Really?"

And how was he meant to answer that? He still lived in his familiar home; he still held his accustomed position. He still possessed a full staff dedicated to his support and safety, bound to him by esteem and loyalty. Lestrade could claim none of these things.

"Yeah, thought so," Lestrade said, very softly. "I miss him, too. God, I'm so sorry."

Mycroft blinked, at a loss.

After another healthy pull on his pint, Lestrade said, "Why're you here? Somehow I doubt this is one of your regular haunts. Sure as hell isn't mine."

"I was going to ask you the same question." Mycroft shepherded the conversation back toward the path he'd originally charted. "A man in your line of work accumulates enemies, Greg. And the media coverage of your suspension has announced in no uncertain terms that you're now alone, without defence or backup—"

"—and that the higher-ups at the Yard wouldn't exactly call out the cavalry if one morning I turned up missing. In fact, they'd probably be relieved." Lestrade grimaced. "I _can _read between the lines, y'know."

Mycroft crossed his arms. "And yet you're here, in the open, on your own."

Lestrade returned his gaze with frankness. Sleeplessness and stress and no little grief had etched new lines on his face and framed his eyes in shadows. "Am I supposed to respond to that, or just sit here like a good lad while you deduce everything you want to know?"

Before Mycroft could reply, Lestrade said, "No, don't answer. I'm here because if I'd spent another minute in that empty flat I might've crawled into a bottle and never climbed out. At least if I have a pint or two in public, I know I'll stop."

With his chin Lestrade indicated the night that lurked beyond the bar's front windows. "Wouldn't do to meet the monsters in the dark when I'm off my face. Self-preservation and all that."

He took a measured breath and managed to appear both embarrassed and defiant as he traced the grain in the wooden armrest with a finger. Mycroft let the silence spill out between them until Lestrade spoke again.

"I'm staring down fifty with no marriage and no home to speak of. All I have left is twenty-six-plus years on the force, and the bureaucrats want me to walk away from that for their convenience."

He shook his head, a man of few words unused to confession.

"I can't do it, Mycroft."

Lestrade forced himself onward with a kind of grim determination, seemingly content for Mycroft to serve as silent witness to this rare unburdening.

"I won't. Not if they demote me to constable or worse. It's all I've got, and I'll not apologise for doing my job, and I'll not make it easy for them to throw me away like yesterday's rubbish because I believed – still believe – in a man who helped me stop murderers."

After a beat, Lestrade looked up. With a rueful sigh, he added, "And it would be a hell of a lot easier to salvage whatever dignity I have left if you weren't staring at me like I'm something oozy in a slide under a microscope."

As forthrightness met finesse headlong, any awkwardness between them was familiar enough to be almost comforting.

"I came here" – Mycroft cleared his throat, off-balance for reasons he couldn't quite name – "to tell you that you have an alternative. There's a place for you. On my staff."

Lestrade actually laughed, a throaty, incredulous sound. "Doing what, pray tell? Washing your windows? Shining your shoes?" He ran a palm over his mouth, pausing to scratch at his new beard before waving a hand to dismiss the notion. "You forget I've seen your people, Mycroft. They're half my age with twice my education."

"And only a small fraction of your experience," Mycroft countered. "And none of why I trusted you with my brother in the first place."

At Lestrade's raised eyebrow, Mycroft added, "Surely you recall the warehouse. What was it? Almost seven years ago."

"Bit of a blur, really. I remember thinking you were going to have me shot. I remember trying not to piss myself." Lestrade's features gentled into a fond expression at odds with his words. "And I remember telling you where you could shove your money and your spy games."

"Ah, I was thinking of that last part, yes."

Lestrade leaned forward and began to reach out, but he halted before he touched Mycroft's sleeve. He'd not consumed nearly enough alcohol in the long or short term, Mycroft thought, to make his eyes quite as bloodshot as they were.

"Throughout our years of" – Lestrade gestured vaguely between them – "cooperation, I've done what you asked because I chose to. I could honestly say, 'You're not the boss of me.'" He offered a brief, crooked grin. "Can't give that up now, can I?"

Mycroft scowled at the stubbornness of the man, even as an answering smile tugged at his lips.

The moment passed.

"Anyway, could be a moot point." Lestrade drew back and refitted his fingers to his glass. "I may be prosecuted, when all's said and done."

And if prosecuted, then possibly convicted.

Neither man noted that incarceration for a career policeman would be a death sentence – or worse. That was understood.

"It won't come to that," Mycroft said. "The Met fervently desire less publicity on this matter, not more."

Lestrade nodded.

Mycroft finished his brandy without tasting it at all.

The bar's mood music presented as much of a relentless assault on the senses as its décor.

At last Lestrade said gruffly, "Ta for the offer, but I'm not your mess to clean up. Made my own bed, didn't I? Now to lie in it."

Mycroft drew a breath to protest, but Lestrade cut him off with a quiet, "Please, don't."

After a swallow that nearly drained his glass, Lestrade rose – no trace of unsteadiness there – and ducked his head. "This was good of you, Mycroft. Very good. I won't forget it. Whatever happens."

He left without looking back, drawing his coat around his body like makeshift armour, hunching into the scant anonymity it promised.

Raising a hand in a final salute.

Six days later, Mycroft's surveillance team reported that Greg Lestrade was nowhere to be found.

* * *

END OF CHAPTER 1


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

* * *

John Watson opened the door of his new flat and immediately shut it again.

He took a deep breath. Then another. He counted to ten.

He reopened the door. Mycroft Holmes continued to loom there like a particularly grim example of civic sculpture.

After a short, sharp shake of his head, John thrust out his chin. "Right. This? This is not going to happen. This isn't my life anymore, Mycroft."

He pointed at the chest of the elder Holmes as he bit his tirade into brittle, staccato phrases: "I'm not going to find you. Standing on my doorstep. Or following me. In your big, black car. If you're running low on minions, pop off to the shop. Buy more. Whatever this is, my answer's no."

Because whatever this was, it couldn't bring Sherlock back.

John lowered his hand, clenched it into a fist, and, after a heartbeat, buried it in his jeans pocket before any tremor could betray him. His frailties might not be secrets, John thought, but that didn't mean he had to advertise them.

Mycroft failed to acknowledge John's volley in any way. He didn't even blink.

"Are you quite through, John? Because I'm here on a matter that's most urgent indeed."

"Um, there's more," John admitted, "but I think I hit the high points."

Narrowing his eyes, John realised he was unsure how to read the man who stood before him so preternaturally still, sans umbrella, gloved hands clasped like a supplicant. Mycroft was undeniably present, as formidable as any force of nature, but those cool blue eyes were looking through John, fixed on another point. More than preoccupied, John reckoned. More than anxious.

It occurred to John that this might be Mycroft _afraid_.

And what could the man possibly have left to fear, when the worst already had happened on the pavement below St Bart's?

The fight seeped out of John like blood from a wound. He retreated a step, and Mycroft angled his way through the door.

At once John became aware of how pathetic the sterile sitting room with its stacks of unpacked boxes must appear, and he mumbled, "I'm not exactly… settled." It was an understatement. A blanket description of his life.

Mycroft, however, displayed no Holmesian inclination to scrutinise his surroundings. He made no move to remove his coat or seek a chair. He simply turned on John and asked, "When did you last see or speak to Greg Lestrade?"

Frowning, John closed the door behind them and rested his weight against it. "Why? What's wrong?"

"When?"

"Not recently." Squeezing his eyes shut, John rubbed at the furrows between his brows. "If you haven't noticed, we've both contracted a kind of social disease; neither of us can buy a tin of beans without inciting some kind of media orgy. It's far worse for him now than for me. I thought contact between us would only fan the flames."

Not that there was anything much left to say.

John's memories marched unbidden to a half-shy conversation after Sherlock's graveside service.

"If you want to punch me in the face," Lestrade had offered, "I'll hold still."

To John's shame, there'd been a moment when he'd wished to do just that. Of course, John had also wanted to beat his own skull into the pavement next to Sherlock's shattered body. Grief knows little reason.

A brief and awkward exercise in anguish had followed Lestrade's invitation, as each man attempted to absolve the other of guilt too weighty to shoulder. Lestrade was sorry Sherlock had ever been put in handcuffs. John was sorry they'd ever removed them.

Now John shrugged at Mycroft. "We haven't talked since… maybe a fortnight after the funeral." That seemed tragic, somehow, now that he was forced to face it. "Why?"

"The media orgies, as you put it, effectively declared open season on him," Mycroft explained, kneading his hands together. "He's now missing and, I have good reason to believe, in immediate danger."

"Oh, God."

Mycroft took a step forward, leaning his weight into his words, filling John's vision. "I need your decision now: will you help me save his life, if it can be saved?"

John was already reaching for his jacket. "Anything I can do. What do you need?"

"I assume you keep medical supplies on hand?"

"I've got a small first aid kit for minor injuries, cuts and bruises and the like" – he passed Mycroft and waded into the sea of boxes, certain of his destination – "and a larger field kit prepped for… well, much worse."

"Bring the field kit," Mycroft instructed. "And your service weapon."

* * *

John schooled himself to silence as the black sedan sped into the night.

His experience with medical and military hierarchies had taught him the discipline of the need-to-know scenario, and so he kept to his generous side of the spacious back seat and tried to calm himself with the press of his medical kit against his leg and the bite of his loaded pistol at his back. He knew he couldn't help Lestrade by distracting Mycroft as the man received reports and issued instructions.

John listened, though, when Mycroft was speaking rather than texting, and he gathered from repeated phrases such as "satellite images," "surveillance photos," and "intercepted footage" that the manhunt for Lestrade was yielding fruit.

After some while – John had lost track of the time, as he was quite literally as well as figuratively in the dark – Mycroft straightened and turned toward him, a motion John sensed rather than saw.

"It appears that the Carlson syndicate is to blame. The clan is known for its long memory and patience, and its patriarch publically swore vengeance after his third son was convicted for murder some years ago. It was one of Lestrade's first cases as DI." Anticipating John's question, he added, "Before he began consulting with Sherlock."

Mycroft held out his BlackBerry for John to view.

"Fortunately for us," Mycroft continued, "the youngest Carlson generation is composed of imbeciles."

A film clip began to play. The jerky, blurred image resolved into the blunt fingers of a square, masculine hand bound at the wrist with a zip tie. John noted the swelling and bruising of the knuckles, the lines of gore where the flesh had split with repeated impact.

Wherever this man was, he hadn't gone willingly.

"See 'ere?" came an adolescent whine from the phone's speaker. "'Ere's the line where a ring used to be. No one's waitin' at home for ya anymore, eh, Inspector? No one's keepin' yer bed warm?"

Chuckles sounded from at least two different sources. With nauseating fits and starts, the camera pulled back to show an angled view of the owner of the hand: Greg Lestrade.

His sound eye, the one that wasn't swollen shut, shifted slightly as his captors moved, tracking their positions without acknowledging them directly.

He'd been beaten bloody and secured to a metal chair. The tautness of his posture and the restraint of his breathing suggested that he was managing considerable pain, and John ticked the line "possible internal injuries" on his mental checklist of horrors.

"What'd she do, yer wife," a second voice chimed in, "find 'erself a real man?"

Lestrade gave no indication that the taunt had struck home, but in the dimness of Mycroft's car, John grimaced and dug his knuckles into the meat of his thigh.

On the BlackBerry's screen, a hand in a simple latex glove – no fingerprints, John realised – shot out and closed around Lestrade's naked ring finger, wrenching it backward. A sickening crack followed, and Lestrade thrashed once in his bonds, hissing through clenched teeth.

Off-screen, someone giggled.

"Give us that, yeah?" It was the first voice, squeaking with mirth. "The inspector needs more decoratin'."

The gloved hand reappeared, parting Lestrade's shirt and the torn remains of his vest to reveal his bare torso. John noted the spongy bruising along the man's side and added "possible rib fractures" to his inventory.

Then his attention turned to the scattered pattern of circular marks that wound their way down Lestrade's throat and into the dark hair dusted along his sternum.

A cigarette materialised between latex-covered fingers.

Lestrade's single-eyed gaze fixed on a spot in the middle distance and remained there. His lips became a thin white line.

"If they ever find yer body, it'll be by mistake." The young man's words carried a sneer. "Sure as fuck no one's lookin'."

John ground his teeth as the glowing end of the cigarette descended on an exposed nipple. The muscles corded in Lestrade's neck. His measured breaths grew harsher. At last John heard a distant, swallowed grunt of a noise, then answering laughter.

"Oi!" The bellow came from a far older man, a different direction. "Thatta_phone_? Whatthefuckyathinkyerdo—"

The frame span wildly, and the clip ended.

John blinked in the sudden darkness.

"Today's youth and social media," Mycroft murmured. "It's possible that the future of crime detection lies not in investigating, but simply in waiting for the perpetrators to record, tweet, text, or post their transgressions."

John turned his face toward the night. "And that's what you took away from that scene, is it?" He couldn't help himself. "Here's what I got: Greg's doing his best because he's a stubborn, bloody-minded, brave bastard, not from any sense of hope. He doesn't think anyone's coming."

An impatient sigh. "I saw the footage, John." A hesitation, and then, more subdued, "We believe it was filmed approximately twelve hours ago."

"_Twelve_ hours?!" John choked. "But—"

"I'm using unofficial channels of information where I can, and that takes time. Even in the best of moments, I don't have unlimited resources, contrary to popular belief. And this is decidedly not the best of moments. Handling this… situation… requires unprecedented circumspection until we can be certain who has contributed to it."

As John caught his breath, he digested that. "You think there's some greater conspiracy behind this."

"Sins of omission may be just as potent as sins of commission. It would serve the self-interest of many parties for Lestrade to disappear, taking the scandal he represents with him." Mycroft shifted his weight on the seat. "My people and I are following this trail at the same time we're covering our own. For his safety as well as ours."

"But, God, Mycroft, in twelve hours…" The words died on John's lips.

"We may yet have time." Mycroft's voice was utterly devoid of expression. "They were in no hurry. They wanted their fun."

Once again John scrubbed his fist along the denim plane of his leg, back and forth in a precise line, heating it with friction. A coiling spring.

* * *

John's helplessness gnawed at him, and his simmering anger – so close to the surface these days – finally bubbled over, seeking an outlet.

"Why are you doing this? I didn't think daring rescues fell under your job description. I thought you were more about" – he flapped his hand vaguely – "kidnappings and interrogations. You know, making inconvenient people disappear."

Pushing, almost hoping Mycroft would push back.

Dear God, but he missed Sherlock.

"The night is still young, Doctor." Silk and steel combined in that answer, and despite his better nature John felt a blossom of heat uncurl low in his belly as he imagined what might be in store for certain cowards who tormented good men. "And if I don't, who will? I hardly think ringing up the police is the strategy indicated here. Considering."

But that wasn't enough. "If you wanted to help Greg, why wait 'til now, when he's lost everything? Why not help him keep his warrant card in the first place?"

It felt more than a bit surreal, this adrenaline-bathed dialogue in the dark, sheltered from the black night by tinted windows, shadow upon shadow upon shadow.

It felt like truths might be spoken that otherwise wouldn't find voice.

Mycroft appeared to give John's question genuine consideration. "We are all constrained by our positions," he said. "To overstep one's boundaries is to jeopardise the very power one has to be of service."

Then the lecturing cadence fell away from his speech, and his voice went quiet. "Lestrade understands this. That's why he didn't defy his DCI when he was ordered to arrest Sherlock; he knew that if he'd been disciplined or removed, he wouldn't have been able to serve as Sherlock's inside advocate and assist my brother in clearing his name. Of course, events took a different course."

After a lengthy pause, Mycroft added, "There was nothing I could do."

Whether he was referring now to Lestrade or Sherlock or both, John couldn't be certain.

This begged the question, of course, of why Mycroft cared, why he'd expend his energy on a disgraced and powerless man who could no longer be of use to him and his Machiavellian machinations.

Mycroft seemed to read John's mind. "I can count the number of individuals who passed what I've dubbed my 'warehouse test' on one hand. I can count the number of men to whom I owed my brother's life on two fingers. You are one of those. The fact Sherlock isn't here now doesn't negate the importance of what you both accomplished for him."

John held his tongue and listened.

"Surely you didn't think I was the reason Sherlock became the world's first and only consulting detective, rather than another dead junkie found overdosed in a gutter?"

John had no answer, but he doubted Mycroft expected one. It seemed as though Mycroft needed to talk about Sherlock every bit as much as John desired to know more about him. That made a pitiable kind of sense to John. He only hoped he wasn't hearing Greg Lestrade's eulogy in the process.

"I walked my brother through the doors of a dozen of the most exclusive rehabilitation facilities in Europe, and he walked or crawled or ran or climbed back out again – in some cases, before my car had left the lot. But he went willingly to Lestrade's office. And spare sofa. And, once he was clean, crime scenes."

Clues began to fall together in John's mind, puzzle pieces at last reuniting with their missing mates.

He recalled Lestrade's unexpected appearance in Dartmoor, and his token protest at being considered nothing more than the elder Holmes's errand boy. He'd never denied close association with the man or long familiarity.

Sherlock had suggested that Mycroft thought of Lestrade as his "handler"; the level of trust this implied from a man who worried so about his brother was extraordinary, John realised. How long had Mycroft tested the man, observed him, to discover his true worth?

Then John thought of that most fateful night, that ridiculous and amazing night, when he'd entered the circle of panda cars and ambulances, half-expecting to be led away in handcuffs for the shooting of the cabbie. Mycroft's black sedan had parked alongside the police tape, and Lestrade's team hadn't looked twice. If anything, the Yarders had treated the presence of the "minor government official" as commonplace. Expected.

John had left the scene with Sherlock, giggling and flying high on the wings of adrenaline and wonder and rediscovered strength, but Mycroft had shown no intention of departing. Had he stayed to compare notes? To conspire?

To chat?

Mycroft's distress when he'd knocked on John's door less half an hour ago took on new significance.

"You… you're _friends_."

Not that he couldn't picture Lestrade as the friendly sort. Far from it. John had enjoyed more than one evening of pints and darts and football at the pub with him.

But Mycroft...

"A man in my position has no friends, John," Mycroft said at last, with a sharp edge to his voice that John couldn't identify. "But if he's fortunate, he may have allies. And if he's intelligent, he will protect those allies whenever he's able to do so. As a long-term investment, if you will."

Just then Mycroft's phone vibrated with a plaintive buzzing sound. Its antiseptic blue-white glow bathed his chin and nose and brow as he studied an incoming text.

His expression remained shuttered, but he inhaled sharply.

"What?" John said. "What is it?"

Instead of replying, Mycroft thumbed the intercom to speak to the driver. "We have new information. I'm sending you the details."

He typed rapidly for several seconds, and then he made a call. "Change of plan, my dear. I'm sending you new directions. Coordinate with the other team and report back. Time is of the essence."

"Mycroft," John said, "what the hell is it?"

"According to my source, Lestrade's been removed."

"Removed. Removed? Why can no Holmes bloody say what he bloody means? Removed from that room in the video?"

"From that room. From that building. From London itself."

Mycroft's eyes never left his BlackBerry. "I mean taken to the countryside. Disposed of."

* * *

END OF CHAPTER 2


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

* * *

John lost track of time and distance as they put London behind them. The sedan turned from one less-travelled road to another. Rolling fields replaced city blocks.

The late night died, and early morning was born.

"You trust that source of yours?" John's question sounded overly loud in the dense silence that had grown between the two of them, and he flinched at it. "Because if we're mucking about in the arse-end of nowhere and Greg's back in London–"

"I trust my source," Mycroft confirmed, intent on his phone.

John pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. "And we have some hope that 'disposed of' doesn't mean 'buried in a shallow grave' or 'dismembered and scattered' because…?"

"Because one of the signatures of a Carlson syndicate hit, when the situation has allowed for it, is brutality." After a beat, Mycroft clarified, "That is, of the 'an-autopsy-will-confirm-it-took-quite-a-very-long-time-to-die' variety."

And that was the good news. "Right."

Worry was pointless, and John knew it. There was nothing he could do to be of help at this moment. But try as he might, he couldn't pull his old soldier's trick of having a quick kip before the action, the better to possess ready energy when it was most needed. He could find no calm. Every time he closed his eyes, the footage of Lestrade's torment replayed in full.

And then his imagination extrapolated from there…

They stopped beside what was more of an overgrown trail than a proper rural lane. Within minutes the woman John knew as Anthea joined them. It was a testament to the primal instincts of the human species that, despite John's bone-deep concern for Lestrade, his brain recorded a picture of the woman – black-clad and aglow in their headlights, the very image of Emma Peel reborn – for his future (and very private) reference.

While John inhaled the energy bar and bottled water Anthea provided, she made her report to Mycroft. The elder Holmes nodded, consulting both his BlackBerry and hers, standing in passive acceptance as she wound a heavy scarf about his neck and tucked a silver flask into the breast pocket of his suit jacket.

The conference between the two was brief. Upon its conclusion, both vehicles made their way – maddeningly slowly, without lights – onto what appeared to be a private family farm, finally ending their journey far from any buildings, beneath a low huddle of trees.

The two teams that met them there were small in number but obviously elite, outfitted not only with state-of-the-art weapons but also the finest night-vision and heat-seeking gear. After swift consultation with Mycroft, paired sweepers in all-terrain vehicles deployed in a search pattern designed to cover the many acres as efficiently as possible.

John fretted.

He appreciated that it was a wise tactical decision for him to wait for the scouting parties to do their work, to be centrally located when (not if) the call came for medical assistance. But he needed to be doing something, anything, in the interim, or he'd go mad.

With his medical kit strapped to his body and his pistol tucked into his jeans, he played the torch he'd been given over the uneven terrain and paced back and forth. Each pass took him farther from the elegant vehicles incongruously parked in the early-winter tangle of neglected pastureland, farther from the hushed sounds of the makeshift operations base of those dedicated to the hope that they might rescue a living person rather than discover a cooling corpse.

That was how he heard it.

Ragged and pitifully faint. Exactly what one would expect from a desperately wounded man.

John rushed back to Mycroft.

"A distress signal," he panted. "Weak. Something striking metal. A dull sound."

Mycroft considered him. "John, the countryside is littered with metal in various states of disrepair, and sounds carry. A rusting piece of farm equip–"

"No, no, you don't understand. It wasn't random; it was Morse code. And I'm going."

He didn't wait for a reply. Scrambling down the slope and over the next rise, he doggedly struggled around twisted roots and over loose rocks, straining to locate the source of the summons.

Each time the signal faltered, he muttered, "C'mon, Greg. One more time," and he went still until the sound was repeated.

His trek ended in a shallow depression at the base of a small ridge. At first glance, the spot appeared to be a hollow where dried leaves, broken branches, and other debris blown by the wind and washed by the rain had gathered naturally over the course of the season. He waded into them with both arms swinging and abruptly struck the decaying hulk of an aged automobile.

Before John could send up an alert, one of Mycroft's men materialised at his side, fitting a prise bar to force open the boot of the vehicle.

"Please, God," John breathed. "Please."

* * *

Bless him, Greg already had provided the most crucial information John required. He was alive. He was conscious. He was lucid and obstinate enough to spend his remaining strength signalling for help that he believed wasn't coming.

And that strength was waning fast.

The boot lid groaned its complaint and then surrendered to the prise bar.

For the space of a heartbeat, what John saw made no sense to him. Then he understood in part what Mycroft had meant in describing the Carlsons' "it-took-quite-a-very-long-time-to-die" method of operation. The mineral-wool matting was excellent insulation; a body beneath it would not lose heat quickly.

As a blanket, it was comfortless to the point of cruelty.

"Sir, let me," said the team member, indicating his well-protected hands and forearms, and he peeled back the abrasive layer with deft grace.

John began a steady litany, knowing the words had their own job to do even as they bought him time to assess his patient: "Greg, it's John. John Watson. I'm here with Mycroft Holmes. Help's on the way. Hold on, mate. It's over."

As his torch light roamed over Lestrade's brutalised body, John ruthlessly forced down the anguished _OhJesusGod_clawing its way up his chest and locked it away for a later time.

Hoping to convey his identity through touch alone, he rested his fingers lightly on the crown of Lestrade's head.

"I'm going to cut this blindfold off now, all right?"

"John?" A dry husk of a croak. A shallow rasp of breath. "_John_. Yeah."

John manoeuvred his kit for easy access, thankful that its contents were so familiar that he could locate most by touch alone. He swiftly found the scissors and used them.

Gore pasted the blindfold's fabric to the lacerated face, and John worked it free with care. "I need more light," he called over his shoulder, before saying to Lestrade, steadily and evenly, "Quick thinking, using Morse code. Led us straight to you."

"Tryin'… stay'wake... stayfocuss'd…" Each syllable required considerable effort, John could tell, as Lestrade marshalled the shredded remains of his voice and forced them past uncooperative lips. "Carlsons, John. Mightbenear."

"Mycroft reckoned it was them. His teams are here, armed to the teeth."

And speaking of Mycroft's teams, a woman began making quick work of assembling a portable floodlight to illumine the interior of the boot.

John peeled the last of the blindfold from Lestrade's one properly visible eye and said, "Here's the torch, just for a half a mo'–"

"Knowthedrill…" Lestrade flinched and gasped at the sudden brightness of John's light. "'Mnotconcuss'd. Theywantedme. Aware."

And that lone, dark eye was indeed aware, almost disconcertingly so. John accepted the fierce _sensibleness _he found there, shining through clouds of suffering, like the gift that it was.

They would deal honestly together. They both knew this situation was dire.

"So, Mr I-Know-The-Drill, what's first? Let's start with where this fresh blood's coming from." There was so much of it, and Lestrade's vital signs told John nothing he particularly wanted to hear.

"Belly. Knife. Coupletimesdunno." That explained the coil of his foetal position, tighter even than the close confines of the boot required. "Shallow'nough… totaketime… butJesus_ithurts_."

"Right. I want to keep you as still as possible until transport arrives, but we need to get pressure on those wounds." As John located bandages, he asked, "What else do I need to know? What's most urgent?"

Blistered burns rippled as Lestrade's throat worked, swallowing.

"Ribs'r'dodgy… leftside. Can'tbreathedeep."

"I think maybe we can ease that a bit by shifting your arm, once the tie's off. And we'll need to be very careful when we move you." After a few seconds more, "Okay, I want you to hold your position, and I'll fit these bandages in tight. Hang on, Greg."

As John wedged the compress between Lestrade's thighs and abdomen, the wounded man groaned.

John needed another hand, possibly two.

"Allow me, Doctor," came a somewhat breathless voice. "A medical helicopter is en route. Fifteen minutes." Long fingers joined John's on the bandages and pressed firmly.

Lestrade groaned again, but this time around a name: "Mycroft." Then, badly slurred, "Getyourrrhandsssdirty."

"I'm glad you appreciate my sacrifice," Mycroft said, bending low. "Do put some effort into making it worthwhile."

John spared Mycroft a glance – the elder Holmes looked just as dishevelled and human as any middle-aged man of inaction should've done who'd fought his way over unfamiliar terrain in the middle of the night in a bespoke suit and Italian shoes – and then he returned to his labours, both grateful and bemused.

The zip tie around Lestrade's ankles parted under John's knife with a snap. Severing its mate, which bound Lestrade's wrists behind his back, was a more delicate operation, as most of the man's fingers were broken and several had been stripped of their nails. John eased the useless hands into the least awkward positions possible, one at Lestrade's back, one at his chest.

Leaving Lestrade naked, a grotesque patchwork of blood and bruises, was the Carlsons' parting insult. John unpacked a small shock blanket and folded it around his patient's torso. As John made to unstrap his kit, he found that Mycroft was a step ahead of him.

"Really, John, that jacket is all but useless. Assist me here." Mycroft shrugged an arm out of his long wool coat, and John helped him with the rest.

"Ta," John said. He arranged the added layer over Lestrade, who gave a hoarse moan of appreciation for the warmth.

As they waited, John did what he could do, exposing one section of Lestrade's body at a time. And as he worked over the man, he saw, and he observed.

He deduced.

Lestrade had inflicted the ugly gash along his bearded jaw himself, sawing his face against the jagged innards of the boot in order to slice through the cloth that gagged him. He'd obviously been violently sick – one cheek now rested in the congealing, blood-streaked puddle – but not before he'd managed to cut the gag free. He'd saved himself from asphyxiating on his own vomit by his quick thinking.

He'd achieved the dull thumping sound John heard by striking his heels against the hollow interior of the boot where it met the back column of the passenger seat. Lestrade's heels were one of the only points on his body that could've withstood such repeated use; not even the soles of his feet had escaped the Carlsons' brutality. How long he had shifted and struggled to find the angle and motion necessary to produce a noise that carried, John couldn't imagine.

John felt a fellow soldier's admiration – after all, Lestrade was also a veteran, albeit of a different battlefield – for how the man had kept his wits and training about him, fighting a solitary campaign against despair and agony there in the darkness. All with no expectation that a living soul would ever learn of his valour.

As if on cue, Lestrade ground out, "Thought… I'ddieherean'… No one. Wouldknow."

His admission was as steady as his broken voice could make it. It wasn't meant only for John.

"Indeed," Mycroft said in a low and confidential tone. "But as I believe we've already established, Greg, you're something of an idiot."

A ripple ran through Lestrade, joined by a wet-ugly-frothing hiss of air between his teeth. A whine of pain, also a genuine laugh.

A wave of affection washed over John. In its wake came a scalding sense of yearning for something he'd known and treasured. And lost.

Then there was gunfire and shouting and no time at all for memories.

* * *

END OF CHAPTER 3


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

* * *

John braced himself on the ceramic sink and watched the water circle the drain and disappear. Now and then drops that he'd splashed on his face would fall and join the exiting flow. He had scrubbed his hands and forearms to a bright, raw pink, but he fancied that Greg Lestrade's blood and vomit continued to cling to him, as tenacious as the man himself.

Evidence that the recent hours were reality rather than nightmare.

They would, of course, transform into nightmare soon enough. John had no doubt that his subconscious had just added several new terrors to its already impressive repertoire, and they would revisit him when the nights were darkest and he was most alone.

He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck as he sought to fit the sharp-edged fragments of the early morning together into something like a linear narrative.

He recalled hearing gunfire and shouting. He'd thrown himself forward to shield Lestrade at the same time he'd drawn his pistol. One of Mycroft's people had thought quickly enough to disengage the floodlight trained on them; that had made them far less of an easy target, but it also had left them smothered in profound darkness.

He recalled the muffled impact as another team member had met the immovable object of Mycroft Holmes and failed to guide his long form into a protective crouch. He recalled the hush of Mycroft's call for a report and the coldness of his instructions to use whatever force was necessary to contain the threat.

Most clearly of all, John recalled a choked sound of distress and "_Godhelpme_," the brutal retching as Lestrade once again had been sick, the feel of convulsions under his night-blind hands as that tortured body had tried to wrench itself apart.

After that, Lestrade could not be coaxed back to proper awareness. The only coherent words he'd spoken were a weak, "Notyourfault, John... 'msorry." John couldn't even be sure for what failure Lestrade was extending pardon or holding himself accountable.

John had answered with his heart: "It's not your fault either, Greg. None of it. And I'm sorry, too. Now stay with me, all right? Don't you dare give up now."

More shouts and another volley of gunfire had echoed across the countryside, devoid of any clues as to distance or direction. Then the thunder of an approaching helicopter had drowned all other noise. John's entire universe had collapsed to the scale of Lestrade's next heartbeat, next breath, next second of life.

Now John stared into the draining water and felt... nothing. And far too much.

It took him a moment – or was it minutes? – to realise that another man had entered the lavatory. John looked up into the mirror and found Mycroft's reflection returning his gaze.

"Is there news?" John asked as he turned off the tap.

"No, he's still in surgery," Mycroft said, and he held out a neatly stacked bundle. "My personal assistant took the liberty of visiting your new flat. She thought you might appreciate a change of clothing."

John glanced down at himself and grimaced. "Oh, God, yes. Ta very much."

He didn't question how Mycroft already appeared freshly shaved, washed, and dressed in what was obviously a newly-laundered suit. John didn't think he could handle the larger mysteries of the universe just then.

Anthea's choices for him brought an unexpected tightness to John's throat. His earth-toned plaid shirt, well-worn jeans, and oatmeal jumper: they were among his favourites, his wardrobe's equivalent of "comfort food." Somehow, she'd known.

"That was most kind of her," he added, touched.

"She said wasn't paid enough to go through your pants," Mycroft said with a cryptic non-smile of the Mona Lisa sort. "Feel free to take that however you choose."

"Um." John blinked. "Right."

He cleared his throat and deposited the clothes on the counter.

"I believe I owe some of your people an apology," he began.

Mycroft turned his head on one side in mute enquiry.

"On the helicopter. I think for a time things were... a bit not good." He turned, clasped his now-steady hands behind his back, and met Mycroft's eyes as if he were facing a firing squad. "You asked me to come with you because you thought I could help, but instead I put everyone in danger."

"I asked you to come with me because I believed you could save Greg Lestrade's life," Mycroft returned. "And you did."

"What I mean is—"

"_John_. Do give me and mine some credit." Mycroft peered down his nose at him as he tapped the tip of his umbrella on the tile floor. "You'd been taken in the midnight hours to an unfamiliar outdoor location, only to be rescued from gunfire via medical transport, complete with a critically wounded patient under your care; given your background and experience, some disorientation was only to be expected."

He punctuated his words with pursed lips. "It mattered not one whit whether you thought the helicopter was headed for London or Kandahar; what mattered was that you knew who Lestrade was and what treatment he required. Which you did. At all times.

"If you'd presented a danger, you can be assured that my professionals would've handled it. On the contrary, according to the reports I received, they followed your lead because your expertise and abilities quite obviously exceeded their own. They credit your singular skill as the sole reason Lestrade arrived here alive. As do I."

Turning his face away as if in revulsion, Mycroft added, "Now do get out of those clothes. You look like a butcher escaped from a nineteenth-century penny dreadful."

John swallowed, absorbing the compliment hidden inside the scolding.

"Yeah, well," he mumbled as he peeled off his shirt, "I knew it wasn't a proper flashback. Not enough corpses."

Eyes primly averted, Mycroft rocked in his Italian shoes. "Oh, but there are corpses at the end of this story, John." His words were toneless and precisely enunciated. "However you're not the one responsible for them, in any sense of the term."

Stripped to his vest, John found new crimson stains on his skin that wanted cleaning. "What the hell happened out there?"

Mycroft didn't answer immediately. "The two youngest Carlsons – the ones you saw on the film – were given Lestrade's 'hit' as a kind of coming-of-age test. Which, it goes without saying, they spectacularly failed. The younger of the two desired a trophy of his first kill, but the syndicate denied him. It's not part of the Carlson signature, he was told; for that matter, carving bits off of Lestrade might've caused him to bleed out too quickly and ruin the overall effect."

John grimaced, stepping out of his soiled jeans.

"The gunfire you heard was the two of them returning to the scene against orders to collect that memento. And encountering our resistance." Mycroft swivelled, and his eyes found John's in the mirror. "The younger had every intention of performing an amateur castration on Lestrade in order to have a souvenir fit to keep in a jar. As proof of his own criminal prowess."

"Dear God." John shuddered. "They admitted it?"

Mycroft's face was blank. "Let's just say the older of the two survived his compatriot and partner in crime by several very informative minutes."

John closed his eyes as he shrugged into his jumper.

For some moments they said nothing.

"If you're readying some lecture about due process, about the ethics of my serving as judge and jury and executioner, please unburden yourself now." Mycroft inspected his nails. "I expect I'll be busy later."

"How old were they?" John asked.

"Does it matter?"

"I'd like to know."

"The law calls them minors, though only just. Their family hoped to call them men." In a softer voice, yet still without inflection, "I think we would agree they were old enough to know not to stab and whip and beat and kick a man to the point of death."

"Yes," John said. He opened his mouth, closed it again, and then repeated, "Yes."

He stared at the haphazard pile of sodden clothing he'd created.

"Some of the bravest people I've ever met," John said haltingly after a time, "have put their lives on the line all over the world to fight for the rule of law. To fight against men who've wielded the kind of arbitrary and unaccountable power you seem to have. Men who kidnap. Interrogate. Make people disappear."

He shook his head, still studying the blood-soaked fabric at his feet. "I'm not always comfortable with what you do, and I'm not sure I'll ever be. But I know without a doubt that due process is currently failing a truly good man, and today you saved him." John gave a noncommittal huff. "God knows I'm not going to lose any sleep over the bloody Carlsons. I was prepared to shoot them myself to defend us."

Crouching to gather his clothes, he ran a hand over his face. "Y'know, I honestly didn't get the fact you two were '_allies_.'" He gave the word ironic weight and quotation marks with his fingers. "You and Greg."

"I'm sorry if you think less of him now." John recognised Mycroft's biting tone from former petty squabbles with Sherlock.

"No, I don't," John said quietly. "I think more of you, actually."

Mycroft made no reply.

When John rose, Mycroft glanced at the cast-off clothing and then threw a pointed look toward an oversized rubbish bin. With a nod, John binned the pile.

"Dare I ask where we are?" John said. "I have no idea. This doesn't look like any hospital I've ever seen in London. Or, you know, anywhere."

"It's somewhere safe," Mycroft said. "Leave it at that for the present."

"And you'd stake your life on that? That it's safe?"

"My life and yours. And Lestrade's." Mycroft was drawing intricate, invisible patterns on the tiles with the tip of his umbrella.

"For how long?"

"As long as needed."

"And you said you didn't have unlimited resources."

"I don't." A brief Cheshire-Cat grin. "There are times, however, when I have access to those who do."

John snorted. Then he sobered.

"It was a very close thing, Mycroft. He nearly haemorrhaged to death. One organ ruptured, two more punctured. A man doesn't heal from that overnight. And his hands: he'll be helpless until his fingers heal. That won't only be a horror all its own for a man as self-sufficient as Greg; it will be _dangerous_. He'll be more vulnerable than he's ever been."

"Mmmm, my concerns exactly." Mycroft continued working his umbrella along the tiles. "Suitable arrangements will have to be made.

"For example" – there was a studied nonchalance to Mycroft's words – "I have a spare room that would be available for the short term, in a home well guarded around the clock by trained security forces. More than one room, as a matter of fact, should Lestrade need someone with medical expertise nearby for those first critical weeks after he's been released, someone who wasn't… settled… elsewhere. I may not be in London or even in the country the entire time, but I wouldn't need to be, would I?"

"I'll – right, yes," John managed. "An arrangement like that... it might be workable. In the short term. Um. Something to keep in mind."

"Yes, do that."

"And what happens next? With the Yard's investigation? His hearing?"

"A bridge we will cross when we must. Perhaps we can use this attack as leverage against the Met. Perhaps new evidence will come to light before the question is ripe. Or perhaps it would be safer for all concerned if the wider world, temporarily at least, believed that Greg Lestrade perished at the Carlsons' hands."

"What? Fake his own death?" John was shocked at the thought.

An elegant shrug. "It's been done." Then, with a smirk, "Tedious man that he is, Lestrade no doubt will want to be a part of any discussion about the details of his future."

"How dare he."

After a beat, John added, "Mycroft, what I said earlier, when you came to the flat, about not being your minion anymore–"

"You've never been my minion, John. I'm keenly aware of the fact." Mycroft ceased his invisible etching. As John finger-combed his hair into order before the mirror, the elder Holmes lurked by the wall like a disconcertingly benevolent gargoyle, hands folded before him and anchored on the handle of his umbrella.

"Right. Well. If you call on me in the future, that is, in the long term..." He sighed. "I won't shut the door in your face. At least without hearing you out first. But save the showing-up-on-my-doorstep routine for true emergencies, like this one." He turned, crossed his arms, and thrust out his chin. "Otherwise, you can just phone me. On my phone."

Mycroft nodded. "Understood."

* * *

END OF CHAPTER 4


	5. Chapter 5

Epilogue

* * *

In the corner of the room, Mycroft Holmes angled his BlackBerry just so, took a digital photo, and sent it on its circuitous and encrypted way. The number to which he forwarded the image would be changed within the next thirty-six hours; the recipient it represented was identified only by the title "Unknown Caller" in Mycroft's list of contacts.

The picture he'd taken revealed two men. Ordinary. Dull. Altogether remarkable.

The one reclined in the bed was grey-faced and silver-haired and attached to an alarming number of tubes and wires, but he was breathing on his own, finally in recovery after the last of a marathon of surgeries. The other man curled in a chair by his side, head tilted back and mouth hanging open in exhausted sleep.

The photo offered proof of life.

Vulnerable life. Life currently in Mycroft's charge.

The phone vibrated in Mycroft's hand. The text read, "The room is secure?"

Mycroft typed, "My own handpicked guards stand watch. Only MH, MrsH & a few of my staff know who is here. When he can be moved safely, they'll both be taken to a secure location."

John's head shifted slightly and found another position. The fingers on his left hand flexed open and then closed into a fist. His snores devolved into snuffles.

Another text followed: "I will send the Carlsons a message."

"I was under the impression I already had," Mycroft replied.

"It's worth repeating," came the response.

Lestrade made a soft growl of complaint and frowned in what was obviously less-than-peaceful slumber, rocking a heavily-bandaged hand.

Mycroft stepped closer to the bed and rested his fingertips on the blanket beside Lestrade's feet. He remained frozen there until the man sighed and descended back into drugged oblivion.

"The more names you add to your list, the longer you delay your return," Mycroft noted in his next message. "I will handle this." He couldn't resist adding, "It's not always about you."

The reply was abrupt: "Yes it is."

Attached to this text was a grainy photo obviously taken from a distance as daylight surrendered to dusk. Mycroft narrowed his eyes. The older of the two men on the hotel balcony, stocky and florid-faced and cradling a bottle between meaty hands, was Jay Carlson, the patriarch of the Carlson clan.

The slender man at his side leaning a hip against the railing was at least a generation younger, with a mild, boyish face that easily could have shifted from bland to quite fetching, given the right context. His slight smile in the picture, however, was as unsettling as his dark eyes were cold. Mycroft knew this man used many names. One was Sebastian Moran.

"I see," Mycroft typed, after a heartbeat's pause at the revelation. "Do as you will. You always do anyway. But be careful."

"You should worry about L & J. I'm holding you responsible for their safety."

Mycroft glanced up at the two. They held rare distinctions, these empty-handed refugees from the natural disaster known as Jim Moriarty, whether they knew it or not. They had Sherlock's true concern, and they had Mycroft's absolute trust.

Of course, they had paid for both. Dearly and repeatedly. Greg Lestrade had nearly given his life's blood this day.

Mycroft's word – in this case at least – was his bond. He texted, "I will."

And he would. Constantly.

They were, after all, his allies.

* * *

THE END

* * *

Note: The title refers to the lyrics "If I could only give you everything/You know I haven't got./I couldn't have one conversation/If it wasn't for the lies,/And still I ought to tell you everything..." from the song "Bad Reputation" by Freedy Johnston, which I find very evocative of the mood of the Great Hiatus.

Vital Stats: Originally written in January 2013.


End file.
